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Quid_estVeritas
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I don’t know that quantum physics can be used to “prove” God. What it does do is give a pretty compelling argument that consciousness has a non-material element to it, that some form of mind/matter *dualism *is true. This interpretation of what’s going on during the state vector reduction, or “collapse of the wavefuction” actually goes all the way back to John von Neumann and his arguments in what’s been called the Quantum bible, The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Btw, no one involved in Quantum physics would say that things like electrons don’t exist until they’re observed, instead, something like an electron does exist it just doesn’t have what are called it’s “dynamic attributes” (like a defined position) until it’s observered. It’s just in a superimposed state with no defined position or momentum until an observer comes along and collapses that superpostion state to a defined position or momentum state.
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itinerant1
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The two amount to the same thing in the minds of Heisenberg and Bohr. However, the idea that the uncertainty principle is empirically verified is false, though probably most modern physicists accept the myth without question. On the other hand, Einstein deplored the “dangerous game” which the “Copenhagen people” were playing with reality.
According to the uncertainty relation, as related by Heisenberg, there is an inherent limitation to the accuracy that can be attained in measurements. From this fact Heisenberg immediately jumped to the conclusion that causality had been thereby definitively disproved: “The invalidity or at least the meaninglessness of the law of causality seems to be firmly established through recent developments in atomic physics.” (April, 1927)
And again two years later, Heisenberg says that “the resolution of the paradoxes of atomic physics can be accomplished only by further renunciation of old and cherished ideas. Most important of these is the idea that natural phenomena obey exact laws – the principle of causality,” (Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory; Chicago Univ. Press, 1930)
There can be no quantitative version (physical account) of “potentia”, which is meta-physical.
The notions of “act” and “potentiality” are not Aristotelian mechanics; they strictly metaphysical concepts and realities. Heisenberg’s attempt to give a qualitative notion quantitative significance was intended to convey the illusion that he was a realist. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Heisenberg’s world is ultimately a world of chance, chaos, and incomprehensibility. He says quantum mechanical representation of the objective world “is completely abstract and incomprehensible, since the various mathematical expressions p(q), p(p), etc., do not refer to a real space or a real property; it thus, so to speak, contains no physics at all.”
Nothing can be further from Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy than the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
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mark_a
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A picture would be better.
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Quid_estVeritas
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I’ve read Modern Physics and Ancient Faith and Stephen Barr is actually a fan of the Copenhagen Interpretation, as a matter of fact he’s more aligned with what is called “Orthodox version” of Quantum Theory, which gives consciousness even more prominence than Copenhagen, which is a little wishy-washy as to what constitutes an “observer” (could an observer be a macroscopic measuring device? Copenhagen is kind of vague). The Orthodox version of quantum physics states that it IS consciousness that causes collapse, that’s the version associated with John von Neumann, Eugene Wigner, and Henry Stapp, to name a few. It’s also the version that does make sense if you aren’t biased by preconceived materialist assumptions.
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AnAtheist
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Well, if there was an omniscient and omnipresent observer, all wave functions would collapse immediately resp. would have collapsed already. There would be no “potentia” at all and we could observe no quantum phenomena at all.Perhaps the first scientific proof of God?
1. If there were no self conscious beings to collapse the wave function, then reality consisted only of “potentia”. If I’m correct, logically speaking, this would mean that no evolution could have taken place to give rise to conscious beings. This is because mind is needed in order for any material reality to be actualized.
2. Therefore, there must be an eternal transcendent mind (in which these transcendental realms of quantum probabilities exist) that eternally collapses the wave function by necessity of its being; there by giving rise to material reality.
Since we do observe them we can conclude there is no ominscient and omnipresent observer. That rules out the Christian god I’d dare say.
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MindOverMatter2
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You have presented a good argument here. However on further scrutiny it does not hold up. First of all, your argument merely present a problem; not a defeater. Your argument only works if God isn’t the creator of the laws physics and potentiality. If the laws of physics is synonymous to the laws of metaphysical logic (that is to say that if physical reality was a universal rule of reality in general), then your argument would be a formidable argument against the Christian God. You assume that a mind which creates potentiality cannot choose what to collapse and what not to. But I never said that what applies to finite “human minds” is universally true of all minds. Rather, i said that the scientific empirical evidence suggests that the focus of a “mind” is what is needed in-order for some potentia to collapse. But a mind that is the root cause of all reality and potentiality may very well be exempt from the rule which claims that the mere focus of the mind on reality collapses potentiality; and if in fact mind is what is necessarily needed for potentia to gain actuality, then on that premise it is necessarily the case that God is exempt from the human condition, since there is obviously change and becoming. If the necessity of mind is a necessary fact of the evidence, than we do need the existence of a transcendent mind, regardless of whether we understand it or not. Thus it must be the case that the rule applies only to those conscious beings that are created in and subject to the physical order. Remember potentiality is not by itself an existing being. In order for potentiality to be anything at all there first has to be an actual being that creates potentiality.
I don’t have to provide “positive” evidence. I just have to show that it is necessary given the objective truth of the premise. According to my understanding of the most influential interpretation of quantum-physics, physical reality only exists in potentia until we measure it. The implication severely disapproves of any idea that suggests that physical reality can be reduced to a non-conscious physical cause. In fact it renders it impossible, given the truth of the premise. In other words physical reality isn’t actual when we are not looking at it. Now obviously human beings haven’t been around for all eternity; and thus the implication is that in order for us to avoid a contradiction we need an eternal measure of being; a transcendent eternal mind that can collapses the wave function and at the same time is also exempt from the laws of physics. Given the success of the premise, this would be true regardless of our understanding of how God collapses physical reality in a causal sequence. Also, there is nothing that says that God cannot collapse physical reality in a causal sequence. If God is the being that creates the potentiality for physical beings, then God can will that potentiality to collapse in an evolutionary fashion, since God is the being that makes the rules.
Therefore i don’t see that you argument has succeeded.
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AnAtheist
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Quid_estVeritas
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You are just guessing there, we are still at a complete loss of explaining the “measurment problem”. But ONE THING is sure, it isn’t the “measuring devices” that collapse the wavefunction. No where is that clearer than the modified double slit experiment. I’ve read quite a bit about the implications of the modern version of the double slit and well as the Wheeler’s Delayed Choice version, anyone interested it how it seems to show, for all practical purposes, that it’s own KNOWLEDGE that is involved with the collapse of the wavefunction please read the following description on the web site bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/chap2.html it is an accurate description of what’s going on, please read all the way, especially beyond the part where it says; “Here’s the scary part.”
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MindOverMatter2
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Thanks for your assistance and the link. I two will be reading it.
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lemondiesel
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okay after reading this thread i have a few questions, maybe someone can put provide some (name removed by moderator)ut.
1)is light and sound a product of the beginning?
2)what are things without light? how do you know what something is when there is no light to see it?
3)so then could the product of light and sound be consciousness? (once we could see and hear we could begin experiencing. once we could experience, we could reflect. once we reflect, we learn.)
4)if evolution is true, why would life even develop eyes or ears? how would it even know to adapt to seeing and hearing if it cant even see or hear anything?
to OP, sorry if this is off topic from your thought but this is what came to mind while reading this thread:
You don’t have to look to outer space or go to the end of the Universe to know nothing/emptiness. You are empty. The matter that you are made of is only probably going to be there and only exists as matter when we look at it. Even if the molecules are really there, they are still 99.9% emptiness.
How can nothing be something? The same way your mind is real.
1)is light and sound a product of the beginning?
2)what are things without light? how do you know what something is when there is no light to see it?
3)so then could the product of light and sound be consciousness? (once we could see and hear we could begin experiencing. once we could experience, we could reflect. once we reflect, we learn.)
4)if evolution is true, why would life even develop eyes or ears? how would it even know to adapt to seeing and hearing if it cant even see or hear anything?
to OP, sorry if this is off topic from your thought but this is what came to mind while reading this thread:
You don’t have to look to outer space or go to the end of the Universe to know nothing/emptiness. You are empty. The matter that you are made of is only probably going to be there and only exists as matter when we look at it. Even if the molecules are really there, they are still 99.9% emptiness.
How can nothing be something? The same way your mind is real.
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MindOverMatter2
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Interesting thoughts; but i don’t see why it is necessarily the case that we ought to think that nothing can be something. Emptiness presupposes the existence of something that is empty. Existence is not nothing. Also, surely we need only think that an ultimate “mind” or intellect is the foundation of matter?
I think some ultimate mind creates a seed of potentiality. This mind collapses that which is necessary for the evolutionary development of other minds. This ultimate mind then allows the created minds to have a subjective effect on matter to a limited degree?
I have in the past speculated that perhaps physical reality is a kind of virtual reality simulation based upon probability or some equation of some sort.
I don’t know. Who knows these things?
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ContegoFides
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Quantum Mechanics cannot prove God, as others have posited. However, nothing about quantum mechanics is inconsistent with God.
I’ve studied the subject myself (I have a degree in physics, only a BS, but I also grew up around it as I came from a family of scientists, so I have a good perspective on the subject).
I would posit that quantum mechanics does not so much prove God, but rather is a strong indicator of the existence free will. The inherent randomness of the universe; and indeed the complexity of “empty” space, seems to contraindicate a deterministic universe. In other words, even if you knew all of the initial conditions of the universe to the limits of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, you could not predict the result we see today. We might make probablistic evaluations of likely results based on chaos theory, but you cannot deterministically predict the result to the same level of certainty you started with.
If the universe is not deterministic, then it is possible that we have free will. Indeed, free will seems the most likely result for a being capable of abstract thought since his or her though processes are not determinisitic.
It’s not a proof of free will, really, but the coincidence is more than a little convenient to me.
Ultimately, God cannot be proved, in the sense that none may dispute His existence, because the only way that humans have to eliminate all reasonable dispute on a matter is to make a measurement using a physical tool that both can be understood and agreed upon. (This is positivistic science, in fact.) You cannot measure God with a physical tool, and therefore cannot positivistically prove Him to exist.
You can make some rather reasonable arguments - pointers - that He does exist and that He is the Blessed Trinity. My favorite is first cause followed by the logical claims of Jesus as being God, though I’ve never met an atheist that bought that argument. Most atheists respond to first cause by saying something like, “sure - but that god could be Zeus,” and my retort is that only Jesus claimed to be God, so if He was then that is the correct understanding of God, that Jesus claim is believable because of X,Y,Z - and so and so forth. However, no matter how you formulate the arguments, they are subject to being rejected because they cannot be positivistically proven.
People like to hold onto their dearly held beliefs, even if they are positivistically proven as being wrong. How much harder is it to convince someone a positivistically unprovable belief is wrong?
Ultimately it is the Holy Spirit that converts hearts, not us.
I’ve studied the subject myself (I have a degree in physics, only a BS, but I also grew up around it as I came from a family of scientists, so I have a good perspective on the subject).
I would posit that quantum mechanics does not so much prove God, but rather is a strong indicator of the existence free will. The inherent randomness of the universe; and indeed the complexity of “empty” space, seems to contraindicate a deterministic universe. In other words, even if you knew all of the initial conditions of the universe to the limits of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, you could not predict the result we see today. We might make probablistic evaluations of likely results based on chaos theory, but you cannot deterministically predict the result to the same level of certainty you started with.
If the universe is not deterministic, then it is possible that we have free will. Indeed, free will seems the most likely result for a being capable of abstract thought since his or her though processes are not determinisitic.
It’s not a proof of free will, really, but the coincidence is more than a little convenient to me.
Ultimately, God cannot be proved, in the sense that none may dispute His existence, because the only way that humans have to eliminate all reasonable dispute on a matter is to make a measurement using a physical tool that both can be understood and agreed upon. (This is positivistic science, in fact.) You cannot measure God with a physical tool, and therefore cannot positivistically prove Him to exist.
You can make some rather reasonable arguments - pointers - that He does exist and that He is the Blessed Trinity. My favorite is first cause followed by the logical claims of Jesus as being God, though I’ve never met an atheist that bought that argument.
Most atheists respond to first cause by saying something like, “sure - but that god could be Zeus,” and my retort is that only Jesus claimed to be God, so if He was then that is the correct understanding of God, that Jesus claim is believable because of X,Y,Z - and so and so forth. However, no matter how you formulate the arguments, they are subject to being rejected because they cannot be positivistically proven.People like to hold onto their dearly held beliefs, even if they are positivistically proven as being wrong. How much harder is it to convince someone a positivistically unprovable belief is wrong?
Ultimately it is the Holy Spirit that converts hearts, not us.
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rvilbig
Guest
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor 6:19-20)
Your brain is part of your body.
I personally think the proof is good, although it seems entirely equivalent Aquinas’ second way. If consciousness is the efficient cause of wavefunction collapse, then the question becomes: what is the efficient cause of consciousness? Aquinas might answer “There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. …] Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.” (Summa Q.2 A.3)
-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
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AnAtheist
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Yes, that’s basically the argument physicist Paul Davies has proposed in “God and the New Physics”. Though there are philosophers who think “free will” and a deterministic universe are compatible, I think this argument above has validity. Anyway, the universe is not deterministic for sure, thus free will is certainly not prohibited by some mechanical determinstic means.
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rvilbig
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Here’s an article (in a popular science magazine) that seems relevant to this thread:
discovermagazine.com/2009/may/01-the-biocentric-universe-life-creates-time-space-cosmos
-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
discovermagazine.com/2009/may/01-the-biocentric-universe-life-creates-time-space-cosmos
-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
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Soulewolf
Guest
Unfortunately no. According to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the larger an object is, the less probability it has. So after the unverse was formed, large objects such as organisms and the earth are self sustaining.This is one interpretation of Quantum Physics that i believe can lead to a inferential proof of God. Perhaps the first scientific proof of God?
My argument goes like this.
1. If there were no self conscious beings to collapse the wave function, then reality consisted only of “potentia”. If I’m correct, logically speaking, this would mean that no evolution could have taken place to give rise to conscious beings. This is because mind is needed in order for any material reality to be actualized.
2. Therefore, there must be an eternal transcendent mind (in which these transcendental realms of quantum probabilities exist) that eternally collapses the wave function by necessity of its being; there by giving rise to material reality.
But…
If they could, then this fact would probably ruin my argument. But since there is no good observable causal reasons or mechanisms that would suggest that non-conscious entities can collapse their own wave function, i see no good reason to think that they could; logically speaking.
I am certainly no expert in regards to Quantum Physics, and i will not pretend to be. My argument is only based upon one interpretation that hasn’t really been proven yet. Not to mention that i might be misunderstanding something of vital importance. Perhaps a Catholic with greater knowledge then i will destroy my contentions; but its just a bit of fun.
It will be nice to see what people think. And perhaps somebody might provide their own inferential proves in regards to Quantum Physics. That will be interesting.
Furthermore, if it was indeed god colapsing the wave function, the inclusion of Gods omnipresence as a variable would lead us to conclude that the wave function would not exist, simply because god would be observing the “were is” data of the particle continually, which would collapse the probability wave into a single point. Because wave functions do exist, this can not be the case.
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itinerant1
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The interpretation of quantum physics of which you speak is not a scientific interpretation. It represents, rather, a derivation from an eccentric “philosophy” of quantum mechanics. More specifically, that philosophy is the extreme idealism of the Copenhagen School merged with a rank form of pragmatism.This is one interpretation of Quantum Physics that i believe can lead to a inferential proof of God. Perhaps the first scientific proof of God?
My argument goes like this.
1. If there were no self conscious beings to collapse the wave function, then reality consisted only of “potentia”. If I’m correct, logically speaking, this would mean that no evolution could have taken place to give rise to conscious beings. This is because mind is needed in order for any material reality to be actualized.
2. Therefore, there must be an eternal transcendent mind (in which these transcendental realms of quantum probabilities exist) that eternally collapses the wave function by necessity of its being; there by giving rise to material reality.
But…
If they could, then this fact would probably ruin my argument. But since there is no good observable causal reasons or mechanisms that would suggest that non-conscious entities can collapse their own wave function, i see no good reason to think that they could; logically speaking.
I am certainly no expert in regards to Quantum Physics, and i will not pretend to be. My argument is only based upon one interpretation that hasn’t really been proven yet. Not to mention that i might be misunderstanding something of vital importance. Perhaps a Catholic with greater knowledge then i will destroy my contentions; but its just a bit of fun.
It will be nice to see what people think. And perhaps somebody might provide their own inferential proves in regards to Quantum Physics. That will be interesting.
To assert that the universe exists only upon being perceived is an absurdity. We then would have as many universes as we have perceivers. Such a view entails an extreme solipsism in which a universe or reality existing independently of perceivers cannot be known. Science, then, is no longer about what is real. Knowing is no longer about what truly exists. Hence, any argument to prove the existence of another being, whether God or creature, utterly fails from the outset.
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MindOverMatter2
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Perhaps you are correct. To be fair, I have moved on philosophically since this thread was first made. For example; i nolonger consider it reasonable to think that science can prove the existence of God. However, i have a principle: If God is trully that which is most fundemental to the existence of reality, then God must survive all possible realities. Thus I think some value still exists in my arguement when assuming the truth of that particular philosophy; given the possibility of it being true. Thus when confronted by the copenhagen school you speak of, not only can i express reservations based on my own philosophical thoughts, i can at least say that if your philosophy is true then the existence of a supreme mind must exist as the foundation of all reality.
While i quite happy to admit when i am wrong, i see no basis for calling it absurd. Perhaps it is absurd assuming your worldview, but you have provided no real objective defeaters.
Only if we are the desingers of that which we percieve. Perhaps the universe is designed to exist only when we percieve it, and that when we percieve it we all see the same thing. I don’t see that as an impossibility.
Perhaps the universe cannot be known given the premise of “absolute certainty”. But existence in general can be known to exist with absolute cetainty. The question is do we need absolute certainty in order to honestly think that the universe exists. I don’t think we do.
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Maso
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Everything in any physics text book is dependant on definitions. Otherwise you couldn’t quantify anything before you can apply mathmatical criteria to it. All of those definitions are contingent upon other definitions that eventually boil down to three basic undefignable terms. Those terms are: Space, Time and Matter. You cannot give me a valid definition of those terms in spite of the obvious observation that we could use any of those terms any time in any sentance and anyone would know exactly what was being said…! It’s kind of like a fact that any artist knows… there are three basic colors, red, blue and yellow and you cannot create by mixing other colors.
Another kind of trinity…
So… taking that into consideration, let’s observe what the first line in the Bible says:
In the Beginning, ( time ) God created the heavens ( space ) and the universe. ( matter )
With appologies to my athiestic friends who might mean well… I’d say that trumps it. I mean… how can you argue with that…??? I just don’t know.
I hope Dr. Stephen Barr reads this and posts a comment.
Another kind of trinity…
So… taking that into consideration, let’s observe what the first line in the Bible says:
In the Beginning, ( time ) God created the heavens ( space ) and the universe. ( matter )
With appologies to my athiestic friends who might mean well… I’d say that trumps it. I mean… how can you argue with that…??? I just don’t know.
I hope Dr. Stephen Barr reads this and posts a comment.
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